2012-04-27

The film, set in the mid 1990s outside of St. Petersburg, tells the story of an ethnic Yakut, Major Skryabin, a shell-shocked veteran of the Afghan-Soviet War, who works as a stoker. Living in the incinerator room, the Major shovels coal all day, turning a blind eye to his former military comrade t...

A reflection on modernity and global development. Men as machines. The use of human physical force to perform work in the XXI century.
The film takes place in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where the "machine men" execute different physical works, a mass of millions of people who become the dri...

Piotr Stasik's film gives an insight into the contemporary Russia through the observation of young students and their everyday life at cadet school in Penza 700 km away from Moscow. The director picks up few characters, showing how much their stay at...

„Shanghai Banzai“– it‘s an ironic short documentary about an old and poor district nearby Vilnius city center called Snipiskes, which is also known as Shanghai. Film exposes a paradoxical situation where countryside with its multicultural (Lithuanians, Russians, Polish, Gypsi...

The Inguri River forms a natural border dividing Georgia from Abkhazia. One of the spring floods has created a little island in the middle of the river, as if made for the cultivation of corn. At least, this is the belief of an old peasant, whose sun...

The film poetically traces the solitary existence of three sisters living in the traditional central western region of Iran, where the occasional travelling salesman serves as a distraction from the general monotony.

Latvians think through mud and view the world through a “muddy” filter. Where does the mud come from, and why does it invariably remain: in this country, this language, and in our souls? Mud doesn’t just appear from tears falling upon dry earth. Mud also comes from spillover, done out of joy...

A man called Jake lives in the middle of the forest. He goes for walks in whatever the weather, and takes naps in the misty fields and woods. He builds a raft to spend time sitting in a loch. Drives a beat-up jeep to pick up wood supplies. He is seen in all seasons, surviving frugally, passing the t...

Six strolls. Shanghai before Mao, Berlin during Weimar Republic, interwar Paris, the Soviet Union during industrialization, Japan before invading Manchuria and Barcelona at the beginning of Spanish Civil War. It's just about wandering down the street...

Last year György Szabados, the father of Hungarian improvisational music died during the time of our festival. Under his wings he educated a whole generation (István Bakó, Róbert Benkő, Mihály Dresch, Tamás Geröly, István Grencsó, Ferenc Kovács, Miklós Mákó, Zsolt Vaskó, etc.) On the first day of the Festival we will commemorate to his work.

On our last festvial the Grencsó-Tickmayer-Geröly Trio already performed a memorial music (click here), but we support to watch the concerts and dokumentaries in our film archive page (click here) as well.

Béla Kiss (1942) is a great wise member of the artistic world of Sepsiszentgyörgy. First of all he is a well recognized painter, fine artist and performer. And he has influenced generations as film and jazz club organizer in Sepsiszentgyörgy in Transylvania. After 1989 we immediately found a common ground and relationship with similar minds including Béla Kiss so invited him to be a jury member on our first film festival in 1991 and he also had his first exhibition abroad during this event which wasn't even called Mediawave, yet. In addition we recieved our first poster picture from Him, too. Béla Kiss is 70 years old this year and lives a quite recluse life. István Grencsó was one of the lecturer in the jazz camp of Sepsiszerntgyörgy in 2011 and incouraged the organizers to create a performance (live, improvisational painting and playing music), which was a very successful performance. We are going to open this year's MEDIAWAVE Festival with these show.

Róbert Benkő is one of the basic figures of the Hungarian improvizational music. He was part of most bands in the creative branch of the genre, like Binder Quartett, classic Dresch Quartett and György Szabados big band formation (MAKUZ). Nowadays he is a member of István Grencsó's quartett. Dirung his career he has digressed to other directions like ethnojazz and rock (Ektar, Vágtázó Csodaszarves, Budbudas.) Gábor Gadó and Ákos Szevelényi usually invites him to their occasional formations. We acknoledge his persistent professional career by giving him a "Parallell Culture Award".

Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love are the greatest characters of the contemporary improvisational music. They are the strong personalities, avant-garde stars of the present, not the past. 30 years ago we invited the most fresh, most important musicians of the time - for the International Jazz concert series Győr - like Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, Rova Saxophone Quartet, etc. Back to the present. Both of them have been to MEDIAWAVE Festival before (2005 - Free Music Ensemble, 2006 - The Thing) and both occasions were strong and unforgettable expierience for the audience. After the latter concert when the Hungarian improvisational illustrious musicians stood up from their chairs - around 2 a. m. - sweaty and inspired I said: actually the festival should end right now because the peak point has been over. But there was an other eight days from the festival because it was on the opening day. Of course great performers followed them like Dave Holland, Marc Ribot and William Parker with different bands and more others but that concert was still unforgettable. What happens now? We'll seee.

István Grencsó is a constant character of the Hungarian improvisational music who is brave to experiment and has been an active and basic member of the MEDIAWAVE Festival and its predecessors. He has given numerous memorable concerts with smaller and bigger natinal and international set-ups. He could try out few of his records only at the festival and the recorded material and CD-s became the starting point of Villa Negra, In ragtime, etc. Now we recollect the 30 year old International Jazz concert series Győr, predecessor of MEDIAWAVE Festival. Isvtán Grencsó was already there as a young musician at the beginning of his career as the leader of the Masina Jazz Group from Szombathely/Kőszeg on the first concert day in March 1982. Then, the american saxophone player, Anthony Braxton who was at the peak of his career came to Hungary which was quite huge for the jazz lover audience in Hungary and other neighbouring socialist countries. Until this event only the state could have organized something like this, or more specificly in state organization it would have never happened for sure.

A musical theatre from Saint Petersburg with a wide repertoire. The duo draws inspiration from North- Russian Finno-Ugric shaman music but they show the soviet traditions with adequat distance and humour.

„The idea of the project is older but we actually materialized it last summer. Its music is generated by the interplay between musicians from different backgrounds. Ferenc is the expert in Romanian traditional art (Romanian dance, folklore) and had this wonderful initiative, to bring to life some old songs, especially from Bucovina. On the other side, the voice and the guitar, bring a jazz flavour, meaning that we try to combine a modern aproach with folk music without affecting the autenticity and the deepness that reveals the true Romanian spirit. The percussion blends in perfectly acting as the binder between the two worlds: old and contemporary. In addition we will perform some compositions of mine, in Romanian language, and maybe some in English to give the project a soft international touch.”

Sanyi Silló is proud not to be a dj but still doing it. He is a permanent member of the MEDIAWAVE preview jury, theatre and film director, dramtugre. He is the teacher of the students from the Shakespeare Academy who will perform more times during the festival.